


for the big rock candy mountaineers

by levendis



Series: Prompt Fics [115]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-14
Updated: 2017-08-14
Packaged: 2018-12-15 05:00:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11798916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levendis/pseuds/levendis
Summary: Bill just wants a place to spend the night. That doesn't necessarily have to get weird.





	for the big rock candy mountaineers

**Author's Note:**

> for anon, who prompted: "Clara and the TARDIS"-style multi-Bill

It wasn’t a fight, really. Barely even a conversation, just one of Moira’s monologues (exhausting under the best of circumstances) that, tonight, included a classic throwaway line about how it’s _fine_ they want to get married, she’s all for gay rights, but do they have to throw it in our faces like that?

Bill entertained a brief fantasy of unleashing a stirring speech entitled “I Am A Lesbian And Fuck You”, before garbling out some stream-of-conscious rebuttal that Moira absorbed not at all. And then commenced to feel completely and utterly awful, now alone in the flat, staring down at her late-night prawn cocktail crisps, vaguely thinking about her Netflix queue.

Maybe a fight would have been better. Like where she could have come out (metaphorically) swinging, something she might have felt obligated to win, instead of letting it…not slide, exactly, but there’s a limit to how aggressive you want to get with the person paying the rent. So. Here she is. And then, without much conscious thought: here she isn’t.

 

* * *

 

 

She could call someone, though she won’t, since she’s got friends but not friends _like that_ , where you ring them up at 11 pm cause you can’t stay at home and you’ve got nowhere else. No one she’d impose upon with a ‘hey can I crash on your couch tonight because I feel weird and it’s a whole thing.’ (Would be nice though, wouldn’t it? To be close to someone like that. She thinks about it a lot, and tries not to let the thought choke her too bad, not be too heavy of an emotion. It’s fine. She’s an independent woman.)

Ten minutes into her ‘Just Out For a Walk’ walk, Bill realizes she’s headed towards uni. Specifically towards the Doctor’s office. And as much as she isn’t into the idea of considering an old white man any sort of safe harbour, the ancient git kind of. Is? In a weird, elder-gay, won’t-ask-personal-questions sort of way. So she’s here, on the green facing his office windows.

She pulls out her mobile and debates for about a minute over whether she actually wants to do this, before sending a text.

    _U awake?_

_7777777777shiaifge [flame emoji]  the eventual heat-death of the universe_

Close enough? Close enough.

 

* * *

 

 

“You’re normally here in the daytime,” he says, hurriedly sweeping a stack of papers and textbooks off the chair across from his desk.

She flops down on the chair, swinging her purse off and resting her feet on the haphazard pile of 1990s Phaidon art books. “Yeah.”

He stares at her, kind of wild-eyed but in that distanced way he has sometimes, like his brain isn’t quite processing the situation in the way a human would.

“Sorry about the text, I made a thing, it responds to the telephone but, ah, there’s some kinks to be worked out.” He points at a toaster on the desk, and then shrugs, and sits down gingerly.

“No worries.”

“So.”

“Yeah.”

One of the benefits to being mentee to incredibly awkward mentor is how their shortcomings reliably make you think better of yourself. Bill lets the moment play out, almost nearly feeling incrementally less awful.

“Is everything okay?”

“No.”

“Wanna talk about it?”

“Not particularly.”

The Doctor exhales, visibly relieved. “So what d'you want, then? School stuff? Chit chat? Maybe go for a ride?”

“Kinda just hoped you’d let me crash here.”

“Uh.”

“Sleep on your sofa,” she elaborates.

“Oh! Yes. Of course. But also - ” He grandly gestures towards the TARDIS, with that face that indicates he’s feeling very clever. “Infinite space. Probably still a couple of bedrooms. Or you could make your own, if you’d like. Also there’s a park, park naps are excellent. Better than the couch, which was marginally comfortable before Nardole engraved his arse groove, and now is…not great.”

There’s acceptable-weird and there’s upsetting-weird, and right now, when what she wants is a warm blanket and maybe a cup of tea, sleeping in the unfathomable eldritch horror of a time-space ship is maybe the latter. But it’s not like she expected anything normal, coming here, and the Doctor looks so genuinely earnest and happy to offer up his TimeBnB, so.

“Right. Okay.” She stands up, grabs her bag off the floor, then pauses. “You coming with?”

“Nah. Got work to do. Calculus.” He nods at the guitar propped up against the bookcase.

“Right,” she says again. She makes a face, and it’s a weird face, she’d been going for a casual sort of 'Life: am I right?“ thing but it feels very much not that. “Thanks.”

“No thanks required. You’re always welcome here. Or in the TARDIS. I think she’s missed you, actually.”

He smiles; he means it. She tries not to let that choke her up too much.

“If you get lost or – whatever, text me. The toaster will probably just load up Doom in response but I’ll get the message eventually.”

 

* * *

 

 

This place is odd, odder than usual, here alone. Not in a bad way. From somewhere, nowhere, there’s a happy-sounding warble.

“Hey, you,” Bill says. “The Doctor said I could make a room? For sleeping in?”

The ship chirps in what she hopes is affirmation.

Does she finger the console now? There’s a bit which is definitely just for fingerbanging a sentient spacecraft. She stares at it warily.

The ship chirps again, and then turns the lights on, one by one, down a hallway. Bill shrugs, and follows.

 

* * *

 

 

There’s a corridor, which is a forever corridor, branching out into other forever corridors. The lights turn on in front of her, one by one.

Bill sees something out of the corner of her eye, and tries very hard not to be scared. “No one else here but us girls, yeah?”

The ship hums back.

More corridors. She sees something cross the t-junction ahead of her. Someone. Who looks a lot like her. Okay.

“Am I…am I here too? Like future-me? Is this some time-travel paradox thing?”

The ship sort of sighs, like _no_ , like _c'mon_.

She turns a corner, and there she is. Her clone, future self, robo-duplicate, whatever. She resolutely does not panic. “Hey,” she says, waving.

“Hiya,” other-Bill replies, also waving.

“Are you me?”

“I’m a projection. You’re very pretty. I thought it would be nice to look like you.” The projection waves again.

Bill squints. Who knows why she’d actually thought she could just have a normal sleepover here.

“And I can do more than one,” says another not-Her, projection-clone-robot-thing, springing out from the wall behind her. “We can kiss. Many humans enjoy kissing.”

“Right. Okay. See.” Bill attempts to find her inner Zen. “I just want a good night’s sleep, yeah? Not, uh. Making out with myself, or whatever.”

Not-Bill No. 1 smiles, and takes her hand. Feels weird, like it feels real but not human-real. Like the touch is flickering between flesh and some indefinable buzz. “Come with me? There’s a pillow fort.”

Not-Bill No. 2 takes Bill’s other hand. “We can cuddle.”

Bill lets herself be lead onward. “Yeah, cuddling’s fine. I think. Let you know when we get there.”

 

* * *

 

 

She wakes up the next morning in the console room, feeling relatively well-rested. A memory of snuggling up with herself. Weird, good-weird, nice-weird. The ship is bleeping at her cheerfully. She’s got ten unread texts from the Doctor, nine of which are penguin-arse-typed keysmashes and one of which is a video of Doom gameplay. She settles her purse around her shoulders and exits back out into the real world, waving behind her as she goes.


End file.
